Part 18 (2/2)

_Austin._ Ay; I want to know how the mystery man cures his patients.

_Hunter._ If ever you should require a doctor, I hope you will have one more skilful than the mystery man that I am going to describe. The wounded warriors were in extremity, and I thought that one of them was dying before the mystery man made his appearance; but you shall hear.

The wounded men lay groaning on the ground, with Indians around them, who kept moaning even louder than they did; when, all at once, a scuffle of feet and a noise like that of a low rattle were heard.

_Austin._ The mystery man was coming, I suppose.

_Hunter._ He was; and a death-like silence was instantly preserved by all the attendant Indians. In came the mystery man, covered over with the s.h.a.ggy hide of a yellow bear, so that, had it not been that his moca.s.sins, leggings and hands were visible, you might have supposed a real bear was walking upright, with a spear in one paw, and a rattle, formed like a tambourine, in the other.

_Basil._ He could never cure the dying man with his tambourine.

_Hunter._ From the yellow bear-skin hung a profusion of smaller skins, such as those of different kinds of snakes, toads, frogs and bats; with hoofs of animals, beaks and tails of birds, and sc.r.a.ps and fragments of other things; a complete bundle of odds and ends. The medicine man came into the circle, bending his knees, crouching, sliding one foot after the other along the ground, and now and then leaping and grunting. You could not see his face, for the yellow bear-head skin covered it, and the paws dangled before him. He shuffled round and round the wounded men, shaking his rattle and making all kinds of odd noises; he then stopped to turn them over.

_Austin._ He had need of all his medicine.

_Hunter._ Hardly had he been present a minute, before one of the men died; and, in ten minutes more, his companion breathed his last. The medicine man turned them over, shook his rattle over them, howled, groaned and grunted; but it would not do; the men were dead, and all his mummery would not bring them back to life again; so, after a few antics of various kinds, he shuffled off with himself, shaking his rattle, and howling and groaning louder than ever. You may remember, that I told you of the death of Oseola, the Seminole chief: he who struck his dagger through the treaty that was to sign away the hunting-grounds of his tribe, in exchange for distant lands.

_Austin._ Yes. You said that he dashed his dagger not only through the contract, but also through the table on which it lay.

_Brian._ And you told us that he was taken prisoner by treachery and died in captivity.

_Hunter._ Now I will tell you the particulars of his death; for I only said before, that he died pillowed on the faithful bosom of his wife.

He had his two wives with him when he died, but one was his favourite.

_Austin._ Please to let us know every thing about him. It was at Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina.

_Hunter._ Finding himself at the point of death, he made signs that the chiefs and officers might be a.s.sembled, and his wishes were immediately complied with. The next thing he desired was, that his war-dress, that dress in which he had so often led his tribe to victory, might be brought to him. His wife waited obediently upon him, and his war-dress was placed before him.

_Basil._ What could he want of his war-dress when he was going to die?

_Austin._ Wait a little, Basil, and you will hear all about it, I dare say.

_Hunter._ It was an affecting sight, to see him get up from his bed on the floor, once more to dress himself as a chief of his tribe, just as if he was about to head an expedition against the whites. Well, he put on his rich moca.s.sins, his leggings adorned with scalp-locks, his s.h.i.+rt and his ornamental belt of war. Nor did he forget the pouch that carried his bullets, the horn that held his powder; nor the knife with which he had taken so many scalps.

_Brian._ How very strange for a dying man to dress himself in that way!

_Hunter._ In all this, he was as calm and as steady as though about to hunt in the woods with his tribe. He then made signs, while sitting up in his bed, that his red paint should be given him, and his looking-gla.s.s held up, that he might paint his face.

_Austin._ And did he paint his face himself?

_Hunter._ Only one half of it; after which his throat, neck, wrists and the backs of his hands were made as red as vermilion would make them. The very handle of his knife was coloured over in the same way.

_Basil._ What did he paint his hands and his knife-handle for?

_Hunter._ Because it was the custom of his tribe, and of his fathers before him, to paint themselves and their weapons red, whenever they took an oath of destruction to their enemies. Oseola did it, no doubt, that he might die like a chief of his tribe; that he might show those around him, that, even in death, he did not forget that he was a Seminole warrior. In that awful hour, he put on his splendid turban with its three ostrich feathers, and then, being wearied with the effort he had made, he lay down to recover his strength.

_Austin._ How weak he must have been!

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